Mobile responsible for 32% of online sales

The increase in commerce via Mobile channels is continuing, according to the recently released IMRG Capgemini Quarterly Benchmarking (for Q4 2013/14). (The press release is available here.)

As mentioned in the headline of this blog, the main figure is that mobile commerce accounted for 32% of UK e-retail sales in Q4 (is in comparison to the 27% figure recorded in Q3). To put this in perspective, the same period last year saw mobile retail accounting for 15% of the UK e-retail market.

Breaking down into the detail further demonstrated that sales via smartphones accounted for 6% of UK e-retail sales, contrasted with the 26% contributed by Tablet devices. In terms of visits, these rose from 38% in Q3 to 45% in Q4.

Checkout abandonment increased slightly (by 1%), while the average Bounce rate decreased to 25% – the lowest score recorded in two years. Interestingly however, click and collect sales fell by 3% in Q4 compared to Q3.

Chris Webster, head of retail at Capgemini said retailers now need to overcome the consistently high basket abandonment rates as well as the high volume of returned items. “So while enormous strides have been made, opportunities to materially improve performance remain.”

The benchmarking received a range of coverage in the press. Most notably, Computer Weekly pointed to the decline in Click and Collect sales, Retail Times focused on the penetration rate of mobile commerce for the online clothing and fashion retail sector, and Mobile Marketing commented on the increase of site visits via mobile devices.